Week 10 NFL Power Rankings: NO Saints, LA Rams and NE Patriots on top

When we started the live update of the Week 10 Pundit Power Rankings on Tuesday morning, the Kansas City Chiefs were in second place. But then the MMQB Power Poll came in. Their fourth-place ranking dropped the Chiefs to third. Then Pete Prisco from CBS Sports decided to leave the Chiefs in fourth, and Kansas City dropped to fourth in the aggregated rankings — a drop of one position — even though they had defeated the Cleveland Browns 37-21 on the road.

Other power rankings we noticed this week:

Jaguars.com (John Oehser — 1st from 2nd) Why not them at No. 1?

NJ.com (Joe Giglio — 1st from 2nd) No offense is consistently as good as Kansas City’s right now. Patrick Mahomes is the NFL MVP, and Andy Reid has an answer for every defense thrown at him.

NBCSports.com (Scott Bair — 4th from 3rd) Pat Mahomes is great. We get it. That Kareen Hunt kid is pretty gosh darn special, too.

Chicago Tribune (Brad Biggs — 3rd from 3rd) The juggernaut has been held under 30 points once all season, and QB Patrick Mahomes has three targets with six or more touchdown catches.

ArizonaSports.com (Vince Marotta — 3rd from 4th) Chiefs had five touchdowns on their first six possessions in easy win.

Bleeding Green Nation (Brandon Lee Gowton — 2nd from 3rd) KC is rolling inferior opponents like clockwork. Ho hum.

Mile High Report (Pete Baron — 1st from 2nd) Congrats to the Chiefs, you are the new “Best Team” in the NFL. I debated putting the Saints up here, but the Chiefs didn’t do anything to warrant being leap frogged. Remember how last year everyone was saying that the Eagles would lose like they always did in the playoffs? Well, that didn’t happen and people keep saying the same thing about the Chiefs. Just use that for a bit of food for thought. I’d love to see a Super Bowl with my #1 and #2 ranked teams [Baron has the Saints #2].

In the final analysis, it’s not so much about what the Chiefs did this week. It’s about what the New Orleans Saints did — defeating the previously unbeaten Los Angeles Rams 45-35 in New Orleans. The Rams deserved to fall from the top spot. The Saints deserved to rise. Meanwhile, the New England Patriots beat the Green Bay Packers impressively — sorry, I meant to say, “Tom Brady beat Aaron Rodgers impressively” — and that left the Chiefs as the odd team out, having done nothing more exciting than defeating the Browns.

I thought Frank Schwab of Yahoo! Sports framed the situation in the proper way: the Saints, the Rams and the Chiefs all have a legitimate argument to be proclaimed the best in the league right now. I’d even go as far to agree with Schwab’s pick; on balance, I think the Chiefs have the most compelling case. But even if you think the Chiefs’ argument is the best one — like a number of pundits who don’t happen to be included in our tabulation — it’s still… you know… arguable.

Elsewhere, things pretty much stayed the same. The Houston Texans moved into the Top 10, while the Washington Redskins fell out; those two teams also posted the biggest gain and loss of the week. The Detroit Lions descended into the cellar, which allowed the Indianapolis Colts to get a hoof-hold on the edge of the windowsill and climb out.

The biggest disagreements among the scribes were about two teams that played each other. ESPN’s poll dropped the Washington Redskins just one spot — and nudged the Atlanta Falcons up only one position — after the 38-14 spanking the Falcons gave the Redksins. Meanwhile, Schwab and NFL.com’s Elliot Harrison gave the Falcons big boosts, while Prisco and Nate Davis of USA Today dropped the Redksins hard.

Snark of the week

Lots of worthy jibes this week. But I loved this one about the Cardinals from Scott Bair at NBCSports.com:

Cardinals join the long and distinguished list of team that have paid Sam Bradford far more than he’s worth.

So how will this change when we total up the data from the number-crunchers, and come up with Arrowhead Pride True Power Rankings for Week 10? It’s hard to say, but I feel it in my bones: we’ll have a new team at the the top of the list on Wednesday. Be sure to check it out!